Trapped
by oceangirl1998
Summary: What happens when the JuiceNet Cafe mysteriously gets flooded with Ash and Emma trapped inside? What'll Emma do when he accidently discovers her secret? Will they make it out alive, or will it be too late? Set during season 2. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi guys. I've been having some writers block lately with my other stories and this was just an idea that was floating around in my head. Yeah, I know, it's a pretty lame title but it was all I could think of right now. I'm not that good at making summaries either. It's kind of a short story, I don't know how many chapters there'll be, though. I'll try and update my other stories as soon as I can, but it might be a while. Well, please review! ;)**

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><p>"You're not suggesting I tell him I'm a mermaid?" Emma exclaimed with wide eyes. She, Cleo, and Rikki were all floating in the moon pool after an early morning swim.<p>

"Umm…" Cleo paused.

"Well…you know Emma, it wouldn't be that bad of an idea," Rikki said. Emma was shocked.

"Are you two crazy? I can't tell Ash I'm a mermaid! What'll he say?" Emma bit her lip. They were seriously going nuts!

"Hey, you know, Lewis knows our secret," Cleo stated.

"Yeah, and Zane does too," Rikki added. Emma rolled her eyes.

"Well Lewis and Zane both found out by accident. But you guys are suggesting that I tell Ash straight up that I'm a mermaid! He'll freak out for sure," Emma complained. "It just wouldn't be right."

"Oh stop whining Emma! None of us know if he'd freak out or what. But you'll never know if you don't take a chance," Rikki blurted out.

She sighed. "What if he won't like me anymore? What'll I do then?" Emma asked, with tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

"Listen, Emma. No matter what happens, we'll be here for you. But if Ash really loves you, he'll accept you for who you are," Cleo comforted her.

"She's right. We'll definitely be here for you," Rikki said.

Emma wiped the tears from her eyes. "Thanks, but, I don't know guys. I'm not talking about this now. I have to get to work," she said, about to slip underneath the water.

"Wait, isn't the café closed today?" Cleo asked.

"Yeah but Ash and I are going there today to look over some paper work. See you later." And with that Emma slipped underneath the water and took off for the Gold Coast.

"Hey Ash," Emma smiled as she unlocked the door and strolled into the café. He walked out of the back room and smiled at her.

"Hi Emma. I'll go get the paper work." Ash walked into another room to grab the papers.

"'Kay," she said and sat down at the counter. He walked back out holding a stack of papers and sat down next to her.

After a few minutes of complete silence, they heard a strange noise coming from the back room. It sounded like water straining against the pipes.

"What's that?" Ash asked alarmed, putting down the papers.

'Oh, no,' Emma thought. Something wasn't right. "What do you mean?" she asked, with her heart pounding against her chest. Again, they heard a creaking sound coming from the back room.

"What, can't you hear it?" Ash exclaimed. The straining, creaking sound grew louder than before and he jumped up from his chair. "Wait here, I'm going to see what's going on." Ash slowly walked toward the back room, where the noise was coming from.

"Ash wait!" Emma suddenly shouted. "I don't think that's a good idea…" She strongly sensed something was wrong.

"What do mean? Nothing's going to happen. Just let me check." Before he could get there, the front doors to the café quickly blew shut and locked with a hard thud. Another huge gust of wind did the same to the other ones.

"What's going on?" Ash asked with his eyes going wide. There was another awkward silence before Emma responded.

"Umm…uhh, Ash, listen to me. Don't go in there." Before she could do anything, he opened the doors to the back room and walked in there, with the pipes still creaking louder than ever.

He walked back out of the back room again with a confused expression on his face. "See, nothing's wrong Emma. I don't know what you're getting all worked up about. Is there something you're not telling me?" he walked over to her and looked her in the eye.

"Uhh, no, of course not," she quickly said and looked back down at the paper work. "How would I know?" A minute later, the pipes were creaking so loud that it sounded like they about to burst completely open! Which is exactly what happened.

"Aah!" Emma screamed as a rush of water came pouring out of the back room and quickly flooded the whole floor of the café.

"What the…?" Ash exclaimed and trudged through already a foot of water to see what was happening. Emma was so shocked that she'd jumped up onto the counter and stood as far away from the water below as she could.

"Emma, what are you doing? Aren't you gonna help me? It's only water!" Ash yelled to her over the noise of the water rushing into the café. It was already past his knees.

"Ash, I can't!" she screamed, fearing that her secret was in danger.

"Why not? It's only water!" he yelled again, with the water already almost reaching his waist.

"I know, but I can't," she half whispered with millions of thoughts racing through her mind.

"Fine! I'll just call the police, or whoever the hell I'm supposed to call for freakin' floods!" Ash was enormously frustrated now, soaking wet from head to toe after falling in the water numerous times.

"Ash, wait! Don't call ANYONE!" Emma suddenly shouted, panicking, and not realizing her foot was slipping off the edge of the counter. "Aah!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, falling into about 5 feet of water.

"Well, the phone doesn't work anyway!" Ash yelled, slamming the phone back down onto the receiver. A second later, he heard a loud splash and whirled around to see where Emma had slipped off the counter.

"Emma!" he shouted and swam over as fast as he could to where she was, now that the water was up to his chest. "Are you okay?"

"Oh no," she said, gasping for air. "What have I done?" Emma sighed with immense worry as the familiar tingling feeling came, and a large golden mermaid tail replaced her legs.

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><p><strong>Well, what did you think? Please, please, review! ;)<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Oh my goodness thank you, thank you so much for the reviews! Coming home after a horrible day of school and a bad science test and seeing already 7 reviews makes my whole day, which is why I'm updating again! So thank you so much for the reviews, and please keep reviewing!**

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><p>Charlotte Watsford stood outside of the JuiceNet Café, pleased with how her plan was turning out. She had successfully used her wind powers to tightly shut and lock the front doors of the café, making sure no water escaped from them.<p>

She had now taken complete control of every pipe in the restaurant, and with a swift move of her hand, released about another 3 feet of water out of the pipes and into the café. Charlotte smirked, satisfied, and lowered her hand to her side. Raising one of her eyebrows, she turned around to leave, the water still running.

'They'll never make it out of there,' she thought, thinking that Cleo, Rikki, and Emma were the only ones in there. 'And when help arrives, their secret won't be a secret anymore.' Charlotte laughed to herself, and left the area, still smirking.

"Emma, are you alright?" Ash asked her with his voice full of worry. He hadn't seen her tail yet.

Emma's heart beat so loud she could barely hear what he'd said. It was like a bomb, about to go off any second. She was surprised he hadn't even noticed her legs were gone, or that her shirt had been replaced by an orange, scaly bikini top.

"Emma?" he asked again, waving his hand in front of her blank expression.

"Umm, uh, y-yeah, I'm alright," she finally managed to stutter. She tried with all her might to slowly back away without him noticing her tail, but it was too late.

"Emma, what's that?" he asked, seeing some of her scales glisten from the sunlight streaming in the café.

Her heart stopped for a second. Ash had seen her tail. 'That's it!' she thought. 'I can't take it anymore! I'm sick and tired of having to hide a huge part of my life from my own boyfriend! I'm just going to come out and say it, no matter what happens!'

"Ash, I, um, have something to tell you." He looked at little confused, but smiled anyway.

"Well you know you can tell me anything Emma."

She took a few deep breaths, swallowed hard, and said it.

"Ash, I'm a mermaid," she whispered and felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

His face turned from slightly confused, to extremely confused, and then to as pale as a ghost.

"What? Is this a joke or something? Are you sick?" He felt her forehead with his hand to see if she had a fever.

"No, I'm not sick!" Emma said, gently taking his hand off her forehead. "I'm telling the truth! See, I'll prove it." She turned, so her right side was facing him. Then she quickly leaned back, so she was floating on top of the water, giving Ash a full view of her mermaid tail.

About 10 seconds later, Emma lowered herself back into the water, so she was floating upright. She glanced at his face. He looked absolutely horrified!

After a moment or two, Ash got the courage to speak. "I-I…it's not possible, Emma! I don't get it, I mean, mermaids don't exist! They're just some fairytale or legend, aren't they?"

His eyes seemed to burn into her soul as he searched her face for an answer. But all it held was a blank expression. She whispered "No."

"But-but, how? It's not possible!" he exclaimed. "How did this even happen?"

"I can't explain it all right now, Ash. All I can tell you is that I turn into a mermaid 10 seconds after I touch water. It's a really long story, and I'll explain the rest later, but right now we're both floating in a flooded café. Look around! There are chairs and tables floating everywhere, there's stuff coming off the walls, it's a mess! What are we going to do?" Emma shouted.

They looked all around the now ruined restaurant. It would take forever to clean it all up, and get the electrical things fixed too. And it would cost a lot of money.

"I don't know, Emma. I can't think right now after all that's happened," he said, referring to her mermaid tail. Her face turned a little pink with embarrassment. "But before we do anything else, we have to see if there's anyway out of here, or if we can get the freakin' pipes to stop leaking!"

"Hmm," Emma thought. "Oh, I know! I can freeze the pipes!"

"Huh? Ohh," Ash groaned, "this has got to be the craziest day of my life!"

She sighed. "Just follow me and I'll show you what I'm talking about." She turned around and gracefully dove under the water and swam toward the back room. He watched as her fin rose up and down.

"Wow," he said and quickly followed her. Once they were in the back room, they could both see a large tear in the pipes where they intersected.

"Holy crap, how did this happen? Those pipes are made of solid steel!" Ash exclaimed.

"I don't know, but I've seen things like this before Ash, and I can only think of one thing that could've caused it: magic. Some source of magic did this."

"What? So you're saying that magic tore those pipes apart?" he asked.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"But, magic doesn't exist! It doesn't make any sense!" Emma rolled her eyes and stared.

"Ash, if mermaids exist, then magic has got to also. I wasn't born a mermaid, it was magic that turned me into one."

He looked like he was about to pass out. That was a lot to take in all at once, considering it'd all happened in 10 minutes.

"Okay, okay. So, you said something about freezing the pipes? Now what the heck is that all about?" Ash uneasily asked.

"Um, well, by freezing the pipes it'll probably make the water stop coming out, so let's see if my powers will be strong enough to do that." Emma said and held up her to freeze it.

"Powers? You have powers? Oh, I must be losing my mind," he groaned.

As soon as he'd said it, Ash watched in complete and utter shock as the water flowing out of the torn pipes instantly froze all around, turning into solid and rock hard ice.

"There, much better," Emma said, satisfied as no more water came pouring out.

"H-how did you do that?" he stuttered with enormously wide eyes.

"I told you, I had a power, and that's to freeze things," she said.

"Right. So you turn into a mermaid whenever you touch water, and you can freeze things. Oh, I am losing my mind!" Ash said warily.

"Ash, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you about this earlier! I was just so afraid of how you'd take it, I mean I wasn't sure how you'd react. This is a REALLY big secret, and you can't tell ANYONE, you have no idea how important that is..."

"Emma! Listen to me!" he inturrupted, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Calm down, okay?" His voice had dropped down to a whisper. "You can trust me. I promise I won't tell anyone about this, no matter what happens. It's okay, it'll all be okay."

Emma smiled hopefully and felt extremely relieved. 'It'll all be okay'. His words echoed through her mind and he pulled her in for a kiss.

5 seconds later they broke off the kiss. "Well," Emma started, "if magic tore those pipes apart, then where did it come from?"

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><p><strong>Yeah, this was a pretty awkward chapter to write. Sorry if it was poorly written, I can dream up any great idea and it goes perfectly in my head, but when I go to type it, it usually turns out a little different than what I'd hoped for, but practice make perfect. I hope you liked it! I tried my best! Please review ;)<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**Ok, you guys are the best reviewers EVER! Thank you for being so nice and liking my story ;) Have any of you have heard of the Modern Woodmen School Speech Contest? If you haven't it's this thing where students all across the U.S. have to write a speech that has to be 3 to 5 minutes long. And guess what? I HATE IT! This year's topic is "A time when volunteers made a difference". So, wish me luck on rehearsing my speech and presenting it to the class ;) Even though I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT, I still think it's really good practice for my writing and speaking skills. I might not be able to update that often though. Well, enjoy the story! ;)**

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><p>"Lewis, have you seen Emma? She's been missing for hours," Rikki asked as she and Cleo approached him. Lewis was fishing at the docks, which he seemed to do everyday now when he wasn't hanging out with Charlotte.<p>

"Why, you guys haven't seen her?" Lewis said reeling in the fishing line.

"No, we went for a swim a few hours ago with her but we haven't seen her since." Cleo sighed getting even more worried by the minute.

"Well, is she working today?" he asked.

"No, but she said she and Ash were going to the café to look over some paper work," Rikki said.

Lewis began to pack up his fishing gear. "Have you checked there?"

"Yes! We looked all over! The door wouldn't even budge, so it must've been locked," Cleo explained.

"Is she at her house?" Lewis asked after he was finished gathering up his fishing gear.

"No. Elliot said he hadn't seen Emma since this morning," Rikki said.

"Sorry, I don't know where she'd be. Maybe she's at Mako?" he suggested.

Rikki sighed. "Okay. We'll see if she's there. If she's not, then we're calling you Lewis. This is serious, Emma could be anywhere."

"All right," Lewis said. "I'll see you later. I've got to go meet Charlotte."

"Of course you do," Cleo angrily muttered under her breath.

"Oh, give it a rest Cleo!" Rikki said. "Come on." And with that the two mermaids dove off the dock and swam to Mako Island.

"Are you sure there's no way out of here?" Ash impatiently asked Emma as they floated in 8 feet of water by the front doors of the café.

"Yes, I'm positive!" she yelled. "That door is sealed shut! It won't budge at all!"

"Oh no," he sighed. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see if help ever arrives."

"But they'll see your tail!" Ash pointed out.

"Well what's better Ash? Having my secret exposed, or drowning?" Emma asked, and sank down underwater to the bottom and lay on the floor. She stared at it, thinking hard to find a way out of there.

Ash groaned and began to float on his back. 'How did I ever get pulled into such a mess?' he asked himself.

'Oh, I know!' Emma thought after a few minutes. She instantly shot up and exclaimed, "I know what to do!"

"Aah!" he screamed and fell under the water. Ash swam back to the surface coughing and gasping for air.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Emma said and rubbed his back.

When he was finished, he said, "It's okay, so what did you say earlier?"

"I said I know what to do! Maybe if I bang my tail hard enough against the door, it'll break open and all the water will flow out!"

"Wow, uh, won't that hurt?" he hesitantly asked.

"No, I've done it before and it didn't hurt at all. Mermaid tails are really strong and powerful, Ash."

He sighed. "Well, if you say it doesn't hurt, then go right ahead and try it."

"Great." She said. Emma swam over to the door and looked at it. Then she positioned herself at the right angle and slammed her tail into the door. BANG!

"Whoa!" Ash exclaimed backing farther away. The first hit had barely made a dent.

"That's weird," Emma said. "Let me try again." BANG! She hit the door again, this time a making a bigger dent.

"Is this going to work?" he asked getting nervous.

"Well it should, it did on Miss Chatham's boat," Emma pondered.

"Huh?"

Ignoring him, Emma attempted one last hit at breaking the door open. BANG! This hit was louder and more powerful than the rest, making an enormous dent. It shook the whole café, as if an earthquake had just happened. Above them, they heard what sounded like the ceiling cracking. And sure enough it was. The impact to the door had been so hard that it sent a crack up and into the ceiling, causing chunks of it to fall down and splash in the water.

"Aah!" Emma screamed as pieces of ceiling barely missed her. Ash leaped over the water to grab her. He pulled her with him and they crammed themselves against the nearest corner. Emma buried her head into his chest as pieces continued to fall. Minutes later the debris seemed to have stopped coming down.

"Do you think it stopped?" she breathlessly asked after the dust had cleared.

"It looks like it, but it's hard to tell," Ash said.

Emma swam over to where the pieces had fallen out of the ceiling. Debris was scattered everywhere, getting all over her. She looked up at the ceiling.

"Oh my gosh," she said in disbelief.

"What?" Ash swam over to where she was and looked up at the ceiling. "Holy crap," he breathed.

There was a hole about 2 feet wide carved into the ceiling. Apparently, some of the roof had fallen in with the ceiling and they could see up into the sky. It was already sunset.

"Sorry," Emma apologized. "I guess I hit the door too hard. Now it's even more of a mess in here!"

"Yeah, you're right. It'll take forever to clean it all up," he said, still staring at the ceiling.

"But I still don't get it! That door should've been blasted open with no more than 2 hits! After 3 it still hasn't moved, all it has is the humungous indent of where my tail was!" Emma shouted. "And look, it's already sunset! Soon it'll be dark out."

Ash sighed. "Well then I guess we'll have to spend the night here."

"But even mermaids can't sleep in water! I can only hold my breath for around 15 minutes!" she exclaimed.

"15 minutes? !" he said in shock. "That sounds like a long time to me."

Emma groaned. "That's not the point, Ash! The point is we could drown!"

"Okay, okay, calm down, Emma. Do you think there's anything you could do with your, uh, powers?" he asked hopefully.

"Hmm," Emma thought. "Oh, I know what I could do! Come here." She grabbed Ash's hand and they backed up. Then with her right hand, Emma froze the water in the other half of the room. "I know ice is pretty freezing," she said, "but it's all we've got. Besides, it's better than drowning."

"Cool," Ash said, still amazed at how she froze the water by just holding up her hand.

Emma smiled. "Okay, now let's see if it works." They swam over to the enormous block of ice. Ash pulled himself up on it first.

"Well, it seems like it works," he said, standing up. "I think it'll be alright."

"Good," she said. "Now how am I supposed to get up on that?"

"Oh boy," he sighed. "Give me your hands." Ash grabbed her hands and started to pull her up. "Jeez, Emma, you're heavy!" he grunted, pulling her with all his might.

"It's not me, it's the tail!" she yelled while she was slowly beginning to slip out of his hands. Finally, after minutes of struggling, Ash finally managed to haul her whole body up onto the block of ice.

Emma rolled over and lay on her back, breathing heavily.

He lay down next to her. "At least the café's closed again tomorrow," he sighed. "Wow, this has been the craziest day of my life."

Emma smiled. "You've seen nothing yet."

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><p><strong>Yeah I know this wasn't the most exciting chapter, but I promise you the next ones will be a lot better. And I apologize again if it was poorly written. Please review! ;)<strong>


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